Features of Persuasive AI in the Workplace

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies can act as persuaders when implemented in workplace tools and infrastructure. How users process and react to interacting with features of such AI technologies in the workplace remains ill-understood. Literature in human-AI interaction suggests that cues in the user interface can dictate how users process information communicated by an AI and how receptive they are to being persuaded to change or reinforce their behaviors. Literature from human-AI interaction and an existing systematic framework of the study and design of persuasive technology from human-computer interaction can be applied to examining how users interact with persuasive AI in workplace tools and infrastructure. This paper aims to illustrate the application of such a systematic framework for persuasive technology to the study of persuasive AI technologies in the workplace context. Adapted from the persuasive technology framework, an illustrative vignette of a widely used workplace AI-powered tool is offered to further demonstrate features and principles of systems that include a persuasive AI component.